A win on the final day is a must but even that might not save the Foxes from Premier League relegation
Leicester City’s fate therefore depends on this team. Certainly not their team. This is also not one of the best teams in the league, nor is it a team with much to play for. But Bournemouth, already safe, after losing their last three games, will return to the city where they conceded nine goals on their last visit, but not to Everton. And if Bournemouth doesn’t win at least a point at Goodison Park, Leicester will be relegated whether they beat West Ham or not. Seven years after the most unbelievable championship in Premier League history, they suffered the most unexpected relegation since Newcastle 14 years ago.
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Deadlock at St James’ Park could prove Leicester’s Pyrrhic victory:
A first Premier League clean sheet in six months, against a team on their way to the Champions League, could have simply delayed the Foxes’ fate by six days.
Perhaps even a renewed commitment to defense could be considered cause for demotion. Holding off Newcastle was a great result in isolation, but the context could have made it absolutely disastrous.
Dean Smith said on Monday: “We forced Everton to win if we won ourselves. “Whether it’s too little, too late, who knows, but now we’ve moved on to Sunday. I make no apologies for the way we set up today. This – five defenders, two defensive midfielders, a third central midfielder, two set-piece attacking strikers – produces a single shot, compared to Newcastle’s 23. He was lightly beaten by Timothy Castagne and had to rely on a fine save from Nick Pope. But in a match Leicester needed to win to hold their destiny in their hands, they drew almost by choice, showing passivity over time.
“Have I gambled with Leicester’s future?” asked Smith rhetorically. “No, I am a bit of a risk-taker but if we came and went at Newcastle we could have got beaten four or five. They have steamrollered some teams here.” The danger is their defensiveness is remembered as Leicester’s equivalent of Manchester City’s Steve Lomas taking the ball to the corner flag on the last day of the 1995-96 season, drawing against Liverpool when they needed to win and yet wasting time while the substituted Niall Quinn ran down the touchline to try and tell his teammates they had to score. That particular City were relegated after an act of self-immolation. Maybe this one will be, too.
In the broader picture, if bad decisions have brought Leicester to this point, it was far from the worst. The poorer calculation on the night may have been omitting Harvey Barnes and James Maddison, scorers of a combined 22 Premier League goals.
As a general rule, clubs do not get relegated with two players in double figures; they certainly don’t with a midfielder with 10 goals and a winger with 12 on the bench. Many a relegation-threatened team has struggled to score. Not Leicester; or not until they dropped their scorers.
But for Leicester, it has been a year of questionable choices. They can hark back to their opening game, when they had a 2-0 lead over Brentford, when Brendan Rodgers, seemingly making a point to the board about the lack of summer signings, made a lone substitution. A more proactive Thomas Frank made five and Brentford got a point.
They can reflect on the misguided decision to let Kasper Schmeichel go and not replace him. Promoting Danny Ward was a mistake; so was sticking with him for too long as, dubious as Leicester’s defending has been, they were undermined by their goalkeeper. They can wonder about the wisdom of signing Wout Faes as Wesley Fofana’s successor: sporadically excellent, he has spent much of the run-in in error-prone mode, forever running in the wrong direction as goals were scored.
They can look at Rodgers; he wrote off some of their players, concluding their hunger had gone. It might have made a difference if Caglar Soyuncu had played more, or if he had not given up on Youri Tielemans, but perhaps not. They can ponder if Rodgers should have been sacked sooner; he almost seemed to want to go, his fire extinguished, but the timing of his sacking was terrible as their powerbrokers lacked a plan. They lost two home games under two caretakers, squandering the chance for a boost. They landed on Smith, seemingly out of more desperation than inspiration, when he was on the practice rounds at Augusta.
His decision to let Maddison take a penalty at Everton backfired, just as Maddison had erred in gifting Bournemouth their winner. Over a season, Jamie Vardy has played too often, though at least he has regressed due to age: Tielemans and Wilfred Ndidi cannot use that as a mitigating factor.
Leicester have conceded too many goals, had too many injuries, had too many players; a couple of years of bad buys and an inability to sell anyone left them with the bloated squad that restricted their trading last summer.
And so here they are, with one win in 15 games, with less than half their points total from 2020-21, with one match to go. Smith is betting on Bournemouth. Which, as Bournemouth have more away victories than Leicester have home wins, may have a certain logic. But that only highlights Leicester’s inability to win in a season where they may be the greatest losers of all.
